212 A GLASTONBURY ROMANCE
ter, not a sparrow upon any roof, not a crack in any window,
not any aspect of the weather, wet or fine, not any old face or
any new face, not any familiar suit of clothes or any unex-
pected suit of clothes, not any dog, or cat, or canary, or pigeon,
or .horse, or bicycle or motor car, not any new leaf on an old
branch, not any old leaf on a new roof—but Timothy Wollop
noted it, liked to see it there, and thought about its being there.
The Mayor was one of those rare beings who really like the
world we all have been born into. More than that; oh, much
more than that! The Mayor was obsessed with a trance-like ab-
sorption of interest, by the appearance of our world exactly
as it appeared. What worries some, disconcerts others, agitates
others, saddens others, torments others, makes others feel re-
sponsibility, sympathy, shame, remorse, had no effect upon the
duck's back of Mr. Wollop beyond the peaceful titillation of
surface-interest. Below appearances Mr. Wollop never went. Be-
low the surfaces of appearances he never went! If the unbear-
able crotchets of his father had been confined to the old man's
thoughts, Mr. Wollop would never have been ruffled. People's
thoughts were non-existent to the Mayor of Glastonbury; and if
there is a level of possibility more non-existent than non-existence
itself, such a level was filled (for him) by people's instincts,
feelings, impulses, aspirations, intuitions. The servants in his
house, as far as any interior personality was concerned, might
have been labelled A. B. C. and the assistants in his shop, in
the same sense, might have been named D. E. F. When B. (shall
we say?), a female servant in a fit of hysterics, put on her cap
back to front, Mr. Wollop was as interested as when on his walk
to his shop he mildly observed that a well-known tabby-cat's
ear had been bitten off. When E. (shall we say ?), a male shop-
assistant, appeared one morning tricked up for a funeral, Mr,
Wollop enjoyed the same quiet stir as when on his walk down
High Street he noticed that a black frost had killed all the
petunias in old Mrs. Cole's window-box. Mr. vVollop had once
overheard one of his younger shop-assistants—a young man in
Those sleek black hair he had come to take a quiet interest,
wondering what hair-wash the lad patronised—refer to some-
thing called "Neetchky." From the context Mr. Wollop gathered